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Wow. IMO this is a REALLY important article. We've discussed this issue before on this list (probably a year or more ago), but this new article goes into much more detail about Beers' experience -- and about examples of how computers are used today, examples some of which weren't even around last time we discussed this, and which prove his point about the technological and social feasibility of planning. In the Mandel article I referenced yesterday or today, he discusses using TV and telephones to allow rank-and-file workers to interact with their delegates in real-time with national or global self-management bodies. Obviously that's even more feasible with today's social media. And as Morozov makes clear, participation is the key. In the welter of great examples it may not be clear how to implement that, but it's not rocket -- or even computer -- science: workers at an expropriated Wal-Mart which has real-time data on flows of goods can ring up workers at any of the supplying factories or receiving outlets and discuss how to tweak their inputs and outputs. In the meantime, by coincidence yesterday's South China Morning Post reported on a typical example of how computing power is wasted for parasitic profiteering today (my labeling, not theirs): the umbrella uprising in Hong Kong is disrupting the opening of a Hong Kong/Shanghai stock exchange interface, which would have allowed arbitraging, i.e. making profits on fluctuations of prices on each and betting on the changing margins. On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > > In June, 1972, Ángel Parra, Chile’s leading folksinger, wrote a song > titled “Litany for a Computer and a Baby About to Be Born.” Computers are > like children, he sang, and Chilean bureaucrats must not abandon them. The > song was prompted by a visit to Santiago from a British consultant who, > with his ample beard and burly physique, reminded Parra of Santa Claus—a > Santa bearing a “hidden gift, cybernetics.” > > The consultant, Stafford Beer, had been brought in by Chile’s top planners > to help guide the country down what Salvador Allende, its democratically > elected Marxist leader, was calling “the Chilean road to socialism.” Beer > was a leading theorist of cybernetics—a discipline born of midcentury > efforts to understand the role of communication in controlling social, > biological, and technical systems. Chile’s government had a lot to control: > Allende, who took office in November of 1970, had swiftly nationalized the > country’s key industries, and he promised “worker participation” in the > planning process. Beer’s mission was to deliver a hypermodern information > system that would make this possible, and so bring socialism into the > computer age. The system he devised had a gleaming, sci-fi name: Project > Cybersyn. > > full: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machine > ________________________________________________ > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu > Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/ > options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
